Cardiovascular
by 13th Dead End
Summary: Cuddy hands House a new case: a teenage skier with odd, unexplained neurological symptoms, and threatens to hire a new staff member for him if he doesn't take Foreman back after firing him for his relationship with Thirteen. Full summary/pairings inside!
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Cardiovascular

**Author:** 13th Dead End

**Summary:** Cuddy hands House a new case; a teenage skier with odd, unexplained neurological symptoms, and threatens to hire a new staff member for him if he doesn't take Foreman back after firing him for his relationship with Thirteen.

**Pairings:** Foreman/Thirteen, Chase/Cameron. House/Wilson bromance, slash if you squint. Kutner/Taub friendship, slash if you squint. House/Cuddy suggestions. Basically? All the canon pairings you see in the show itself. xD

**Rating:** T for now, might update to an R later depending on events.

**Warning:** Medical gore and such.

**Disclaimer:** If House was mine, I wouldn't be seeing a psychologist.

**Author's Note:**

This would be my first House fic. : I recently got into the show. It's a 'case' esque fic, written just like the episodes are seen on TV. I'm still unsure where the pairings in this fic will go; we'll see that when it happens. Be warned - it will include an oc at some point, but I promise the oc will not become the main focus of the story, nor will the oc distract from what is going on.

Enjoy! Read and reviews are loved.

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Cold wind whipped through the air, nipping at the already pink faces of people gathered at the bottom of a huge, steep hill. It was the day of the regional New Jersey finals in giant slalom ski racing - all the contestants had gathered at the top, breath turning to mist in the cold air and stamping their boots to keep warm as they anticipated the rush down to the bottom. A teenage girl took off her helmet, tying her long blond hair back into a ponytail.

"Camilla!" A woman ran up to her - she was older, so much was evident by the faint wrinkles at the edges of her eyes, but they looked almost identical. Same blonde hair, same blue eyes. "Ready to go?"

"You know I am mom, been working towards this for what, a year now...?" The girl smiled nervously, twirling her hair into a bun and putting her helmet back on, trying to adjust the chin strap. Her fingers were scrabbling to grab hold of the clasp and pull.

"Need help with that, honey?" Her mom immediately reached forwards to adjust it for her. Camilla kept her at bay with a wave of a slightly shaking hand.

"It's fine. My hands are just cold." She slipped her gloves back on. Her mother smiled sweetly at her, positively glowing with pride. The first racer was just being counted down.

"Alright then. I'll go wait at the bottom for you. You go girl, you can win this." She gave her daughter a quick hug and a jaunty wave of the hand, moving slowly down the iced-over stairs at the side of the platform the racers were waiting for their turns on. One of Camilla's friends started babbling in her ear about how nervous she was, but the blonde wasn't paying attention anymore. Her number was called, so she proceeded to the gate. The timer was standing next to the drop off, smiling at her and giving a few encouraging words between numbers rattled off on his walkie-talkie. She couldn't hear him either. She shook her head, pulling her goggles down over her eyes to see the course better and try to fend off the strange fuzziness she was feeling in her head. The course in front of her, like one she had gone down thousands of times before, seemed to be stretching and tunneling out, looking terrifying.

"Racer ready... thee... two... one... go!" She heard those words from the timer, and immediately scrambled to push forwards and get going on the slope. Her arms were oddly weak... her start was awkward and not fast enough. Cursing herself and feeling the blood rush in her ears, she tried to gain more speed. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate, and as soon as she rounded the second turn - not even a little bit into the long course, suddenly, she couldn't feel anything.

Her legs stopped obeying her; it took only a moment, and Camilla was tumbling over herself in the hard, grainy snow. She couldn't see anything, but was pretty sure her eyes were wide open- and she stopped, tumbling off to the side.

The audience at the bottom waited with bated breath - skiers fell sometimes, and the thing to do when that happened would be to get up, walk upthe distance to where one fell, and continue on. Sure, the time coming out would be horrible, but they wouldn't be disqualified. But... this girl wasn't getting up. The gate guards leaped the fence onto the race slope to get to her.

"Somebody call 911!" One of the men roared through the wind.

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"House!"

"You hear that?" House remarked to a nurse at the front desk. "That's the telltale cry of the boss bitch species. They're dangerous." He had just come into work for the morning, making as fast a limp as he could for the elevator to avoid her. The clacking of high heels sounded closer and closer, and unfortunately, she caught up before his finger hit the elevator button.

"Mommy, I have to go to school now."

"Why did you fire Foreman?"

"Nice blouse. It shows off the cleavage nicer than the one you wore yesterday."

"Ugh, I can't believe you..." Cuddy breathed, brushing dark curls from her face. "He's a good doctor -"

"Well, he's biased now thanks to Thirteen. I'll be _fine_, mommy. I've worked with only three doctors on my team before."

Cuddy raised an eyebrow. "More things actually get done with four. I get more clinic hours with four. Previous number four actually knew how to deal with you. That is why I'm going to hire a new fourth doctor for you if you don't take Foreman back." She flashed her dazzling, devilish grin, obviously very satisfied with her plan.

"What? You can't do that! It's my department, my staff!"

"Right, House! And you are my staff, and this is my hospital! We're not going to have House Team Tryouts like we did last time, and jeaopardize the lives of our patients. So. You can either pick up the phone and call Foreman right now, or you can expect to have a new employee in your office by Monday." She gestured at the telephone at the nurse's station.

House started it. He grunted disapprovingly. He stabbed the elevator button with his finger.

"It's your choice, House."

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"So, who's the patient?" House barged into the diagnostics room, opening the door to his office and tossing his backpack through on the floor near his desk.

"Camilla Walters, age 23. Collapsed while on a giant slalom course. She's a professional skier. Sudden weakness in her arms and legs." Thirteen responded quickly from her seat at the table with the patient file open in front of her. Taub half-glanced over his shoulder from where he was attempting to will the coffee pot to work faster; Kutner was leaning to read over Thirteen's shoulder.

"Dehydration. Boring."

"Nah, the ER already checked for that. No dehydration. It just seems to have... come out of nowhere, and it's switching on and off. Her muscles are basically working like sailors, tightening and loosening, over and over." Kutner read this from the file, giving House that hopeful have-I-impressed-you-yet? look.

House stared. Then he got up, popping the cap off of his marker and beginning to scrawl on his whiteboard 'spastic muscle weakness'. "Okay. So we have number one... what can cause spastic muscle weakness - ah ah ah!" He raised a finger to shush them as all three opened their mouths to speak. "I know, only a million things cause that. Which means, you need to talk to the patient some more and find out if there's something else she hasn't mentioned. Headaches, so on and so forth. If she doesn't say anything interesting, we wait. Who gave us this case, anyway?"

"What, just wait for her to get worse? She's already in pain. Her whole muscular system is spasming." Taub raised an eyebrow.

"Who knows, she could just magically get better. We don't know what this thing is, anyway. Maybe she's faking it to get out of a competition. Did anyone hear me ask 'who gave use this case?'"

"Cuddy." Thirteen piped up.

House made a face. No getting out of the oh-so-boring case, then. Cuddy never let him drop a case she gave him... besides, she was probably trying to prove something with it.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go bother the paitent. See if she twitches weird."

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"Camilla, we need you to tell us anything that you might have felt before you fell on the slope... did you have any headaches recently, some random cramps?" Thirteen had the clipboard in her hands and an annoyed look on her face.

"You think I'm lying to you?" The bleach-blonde skier's face tightened briefly in pain and relaxed, as had been going on since the moment she came in; her blue eyes glistened wetly. Her eyes were fixed on the TV in the corner of her room, hands clasped around a bottle of water. "And can't you please give me more pain medication?" Her voice was a quiet whimper.

"Sorry, you're maxed on morphine," Taub answered for Thirteen, checking a monitor. "We're going to try to figure this out as fast as we can so hopefully it will go away soon. Now are you sure this is the only symptom?"

The girl shrugged. "I don't know, my head hurt a little, I guess. But I haven't slept much."

"Ah-huh." Taub gave Thirteen a mini-shrug. So they would wait a little, however long 'a little' was.

Thirteen retreated to a corner to update the chart, watching the girl's near-identical mother get up from her chair and go to her daughter's bedside, clasping her hand.

"It's either neurological or she's faking." Thirteen breathed to Taub, who was looking at what she was writing over her shoulder. "And I'm thinking it might be the latter."

"Why would she be faking? She fell in the middle of a competition she'd been training for for over a year."

"I don't know. Maybe she never really wanted to do it, maybe she got scared..."

"I don't think she'd subject herself to that just to get out of a race." Taub glanced at the obvious twitching of the girl's legs underneath the hospital sheets.

"Whatever... let's wait for the differential to discuss this."

"Someone's sour today." Taub had the smallest smug look on his face. "Still bitter about Foreman?"

"Wait." Camilla breathed, before Thirteen could snap back. She let her bottle to drop; "My toes are kinda... numb?" Nevermind 'no tests', Thirteen rushed over and tried poking the sole of the girl's foot with the end of a needle. "I can feel it... but barely. I know that should have hurt more!" Thirteen tried pricking her again. "I can't feel it." And again. "Ow! That hurt!"

So they had number two.

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House was stalking Wilson in the line to the cafeteria checkout when Kutner ran up to inform him of the new symptom.

"Not interested. Keep waiting, at least until after lunch." House's attention was totally elsewhere, eyes on what Wilson was picking out to eat, making sure it was something he wanted. The doctor was trying hard to ignore both House and Kutner. Kutner finally gave up and walked away, preparing to pounce after House finished eating; the older diagnostician bought only a drink and chips for a later snack with a coma guy and limped after his best friend.

"So the new technique involves 'watching and waiting'?"

"Yup." House said simply, plucking an ice cream bar from Wilson's plate and unwrapping it.

"Huh. I also heard you won't take Foreman back."

"Nope." House's voice was muffled through bites of oreo ice cream.

"So Cuddy's going to get personally involved with your... employment crisis."

"I've worked with just three people on my team before, Jimmy. They can handle it."

"She is, isn't she...? I guess it's because your team is still fairly new... she wants someone experienced."

"Like someone she picks, a good-looking male straight out of med school, is going to be experienced."

"I trust her to pick someone appropriate to deal with you." Wilson sighed. "Can I have a piece of that at least? Please?"

House looked shocked. "It has my germs on it already, Jimmy. Licked it." Seeing House was only going to play by 5th grade rules, Wilson let that drop.

"Noone is experienced enough to deal with me. Well, except maybe you."

"Forget it. Go talk to Kutner before he pops a blood vessel." Wilson checked how much change he had left so he could buy another ice cream.

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There you go. There will be more soon. :) Thanks in advance for reviews/faves/etc 3


	2. Chapter 2

This chapter is brief, some medical mumbo jumbo. I'm twisting some symptoms and tests around a little for some more thrill and effect, so sorry to the doctors reading if it's not perfect!

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Kutner caught up with House a few meters past the cafeteria. He had to admit sometimes, nevermind the cane, House could limp pretty damn fast.

"She's having intermittent numbness and spasms." Kutner shoved the blue file folder under House's nose to try and get him to look at it.

"It's her brain - do an MRI, get some blood tests..." House waved a hand. "You know the drill."

"But-"

"Geeze Kutner, Prescription Passion is on! Let me be!" House kept on his course for the coma patients' room, leaving Kutner behind, sighing and rolling his eyes. Oh, he wasn't going to get House to talk to him now.

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"Stay as still as you possibly can. This isn't going to hurt at all, it's just a bit of a small space in there." Taub reassured the teenager with a smile, checking to make sure the oximeter on her finger was placed correctly and she was lying in the right position on the stretcher. Despite the comforting words, the patient's eyes flickered around nervously along with a tentative nod. She swallowed thickly, trying to convince herself to be braver than she really felt. Not knowing anything else to add, Taub hit the button on the MRI, and with a gentle whirr, Camilla was slowly engulfed in the white machine, and Taub ducked into the glass-walled side room.

"You going to participate in this at all?" He quipped at a silent Thirteen, who had been standing on the other side of the MRI the whole time. She rolled her eyes, nodded, and followed the other doctor into the control room.

"Okay, we're starting the scan. Stay as still as you possibly can." Taub called to her over the intercom. The computers began to pop images up on the screen, her brain slice by slice. Taub squinted, giving the mouse a few clicks and leaning back in the swivel chair. Thirteen's eyes were on the screen as well.

"What's with the silence?"

"Just... concentrating on the patient." Thirteen shrugged.

"Oh come on."

"No, really, I just... don't have anything to say. I'm kind of wondering if Cuddy's really going to hire someone new instead of Foreman."

"Yeah. She probably will. But I don't see what point she's trying to make with it. Just battling House's ego, I guess." The outlines of the scan became blurred. She was fidgeting.

"Camilla, lie still please," he added over the intercom.

"Sorry, just twitching," she answered meekly.

"Tch." Thirteen sighed and shook her head slightly. "He'll take Foreman back. Eventually. He'll find an excuse to fire the new person then realize - like he did back when we were trying for this job - that he needs him after all."

"Fifty dollars." Taub held out a hand.

"Fine--" she had extended her hand to take the bet, but a spot on the screen caught her eye. "--wait. Look at that." Thriteen pointed ger finger at a series of spots coming up on the brain images.

Taub stopped in his tracks as well, and peered close to the screen. "Lesions. Perfect. I wish we had a neurologist."

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House went, oddly enough, from the doctor's lounge to the clinic. The attending nurse there seemed surprised to see him. Odd that House would be here of his own accord - he usually had to be forced, or dragged in kicking and complaining. She was about to hand him a file and send him to exam room one-

"Where's Dr. Cuddy?"

"Um-"

"Not in her office. And she's not terrorizing me, so she's doing her beloved clinic duty."

The nurse pursed her lips, then pointed to exam room three. If anyone asked, she saw nothing.

Cuddy was with a patient, of course. A pretty, fairly plastic woman with golden blonde curls heaped into a perfect do on her head. She'd even worn lipstick and eyeshadow to the clinic.

"Um, so," the lady griped, "I found a lump in my breast this morning." She looked suspiciously around the empty office, as if men were hiding in the cabinets and listening in to their conversation. Cuddy raised an eyebrow. "I have breast implants, so it might be like, it's bursting or something..." Cuddy's other eyebrow joined in the arch.

"Well uh, okay, take off your shirt and we'll check that." Cuddy pulled on a pair of latex gloves, reaching to gently feel the suspicious lump. House had picked the perfect moment to swing open the door with a bang. A split second of silence occured, House staring and the two women frozen where they were.

"Whoooaa! Gosh, and here I was thinking I had a chance with you! Wish you'd told me earlier."

Cuddy rolled her eyes, taking her hands away. "Put your shirt back on-" The blonde didn't need to be told twice, and was already pulling her shirt back on to hide from the creep that barged in.

"What do you want, House?"

House was staring at awkward places again. "House!"  
"Sorry, you blew my mind."

"Ugh." Cuddy snapped off her gloves, giving House a gentle push backwards out of the room.

"Hey, what about me?!" The girl cried out indignantly.

"The implant's misshapen. Talk to your surgeon." Cuddy called back after her.

"My patient has a thingy in her brain. I need a neurologist." Cuddy placed her patient's file back on the clinic desk, turning to House.

"Oh, that's terrible, you know who could help you out? That doctor you got rid of a while ago..."

"Aw, come on. Can I take Foreman back now?"

Cuddy sighed. "No. He's got job interviews lined up, annnd... I found you someone. Monday."

She strode off down the hall as fast as her high heels could carry her before House could protest.

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House gathered his team (minus Kutner) in the lightbox room, blue-black images of the patient's brain surrounding them.

"Lesions primarily in grey matter." Thirteen mused, "It could be ALS, something autoimmune.."

"Neurosyphilis?" Taub suggested.

"She's a sixteen year old hardcore athlete. You think she has an STD?"

"Yeah well, who knows? Even if she spends her life at ski boot camp, she could still have a boyfriend she's not telling us about."

"The lesions actually look like developed MS." Thirteen threw out.

"Keyword there being developed. She's 16, this should be onset MS, if it was MS. MS doesn't just pop up fully grown, folks," House quipped. "Go ask her if she's done the nasty, test for STDs, ALS, do a tox screen, and test for MS to rule out MS." He had just finished his sentence when three pagers in the room went off, and Kutner barged in.

"I was checking up on her and - the patient's gone colour blind."

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Thanks for R&R!


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